


do not go gentle into that goodnight ( rage, rage against the dying of the light )

by wearealltalesintheend



Series: to a flat world of changing lights and noise [5]
Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: F/F, M/M, Road Trips, and a very mild jump scare, but not really, just a little suspense, scary moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 05:24:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9975383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearealltalesintheend/pseuds/wearealltalesintheend
Summary: "When they get to the facility, there is only darkness. Darkness high above in the sky, darkness down in the fields around them, darkness inside the building ahead. The moon and the stars are pale dots swallowed by shadows, a swirling pattern of flickering fairy lights miles above. They leave the headlights on as they all step out of the car."or, alternatively, Amanda finds there is truth in not judging a book by its cover, and other hard earned wisdoms.





	

**Author's Note:**

> SO I AM BACK!
> 
> I'm sorry for the delay, university was being Difficult (TM), but alas, here it is. That being said, this has not been proofread so there will be lots of mistakes and I might come back later to edit it.
> 
> So, I kind of have to say I have no idea how the landscape surrounding Seattle or any other place, really, works, so if I'm wildly wrong here, please feel free to point it out to me so I can fix it! Thanks!
> 
> Aaaand today's title is brought to you by Do Not Go Gentle Into That Goodnight by Dylan Thomas.
> 
> Go on, enjoy.

Out there, the sky stretches forever.

 

Once you spend enough time on the road, watching trees and fields and cars speed by, the scenery begins to blur and blend and fade into each other; there are no defining lines. The paved road cuts muted grey lines in the yellow fields and rolls on beyond the horizon, meeting the cloudless blue sky and stretching on forever. Time seems to slowly slip through the cracks, dripping lazily and sending through the sky ripples in the form of lone birds flying by.

 

They had not been driving for long, not even a day, but there's an urgency underlying every second that ticks away and it's sending them further on edge and everything seems to last even longer.

 

There is a tension permeating the air, making it harder to breath, thicker and heavier, and it's lodging itself on Amanda's throat, filling her lungs with cold smoke, sneaking its way  to her chest and crushing her heart with its claws. She looks through the window, watches the fields outside, a blur of faded yellow and muted green streaks, and tries to ignore the snow piling inside her.

 

And it's the strangest thing, because when they had all fallen asleep yesterday, scattered around Todd's living room, there had been companiable silence and bright hope and optimism and Amanda had thought _it's going to be okay_ and she meant it. Farah had been a warm presence at her side on the couch and curling at her side and resting her head on her shoulder, it had been the easiest thing in the world. Amanda remembers Vogel smiling smug at her and wiggling his eyebrows, and she is not sure, but she thinks she might have tried to smile back. She remembers settling down with a cup of tea, the steam swirling in circling patterns and dispersing above her head, but she doesn't remember putting it down. When she woke up early in morning, his brother shaking her awake softly, she had been alone, a blanket covering her and a damp half-moon stain in the coffee table.

 

And the mood hadn't changed overnight. It had sneaked upon them, snow slowly covering the ground, chilling them to the bones, weighting them down and making it harder to walk. The change had been so gradual, words and conversations slowly trickling away, the space between laughters growing longer, until a heavy silence had blanketed the car and speeding through the road seemed not enough.

 

_(Amanda figures it was quite inevitable, really, this sense of impending doom. They are all thinking the same. )_

_( Is it too late?)_

 

And the car seemed to be getting smaller by the hour, walls slowly closing in, eventually confining them in a metal coffin. Amanda is familiar with anxiety, but this is a whole new level. But then again, everything about this is a whole new level.

 

She knows they must be close to this facility. They had been driving for hours, they had left at dawn and the sun is already setting, and Farah's contact had said a day's travel. Considering how she can't even recall what the speed limit was, and the way the world outside is an unrecognizable blur, Amanda thinks time is relative.

 

 _( sometimes Amanda thinks back at that day, when the weird old dude had popped out of nowhere and that asshole put a gun to her head. She remembers the cold feeling of the metal against her skin, the bitter smell of gun powder burning down her throat. But most of all she remembers the words thrown around. There wasn't a conversation or a negotiation at that time. It was more like snippets of different conversations overlapping one another. Still, she remembers the word_ cage _and it sends shivers down her spine. )_

 

When they get to the facility, there is only darkness. Darkness high above in the sky, darkness down in the fields around them, darkness inside the building ahead. The moon and the stars are pale dots swallowed by shadows, a swirling pattern of flickering fairy lights miles above. They leave the headlights on as they all step out of the car.

 

It casts a white light on the dirty walls and dusty windows, the building looks abandoned, decrepited and decaying. Amanda hates it. The dark and the dust and the silence, it all gives the warehouse an air of death and loneliness, and make it look like an old, condemned house in the fields, lost in time, forgotten by the world. It looks like it stood there for a hundred years, and it might stand for a hundred more.

Amanda flexes her hands, fingers itching for something to bash against the small windows, to break down the wooden door, _to do anything._

 

Todd is cursing the world like a doomed man. And perhaps he is, she muses. Her brother is a liar and an egothistical ass, and yet, she remembers the desperation in his eyes as he waved the lottery ticket in her face, the worry lacing his words after the showdown in Webb's estate. So, maybe he's got it all wrong, but Todd has a way of caring too much, too late; and now all there is left is the feeling of drowning so close to the shore.

 

Vogel is kicking the car. Amanda vaguely thinks she should stop him, but the itch in her fingers is still there, so she balls her fists and leaves him to his kicking and screaming, and she looks for a stone in the ground.

 

Farah is circling the building, flashlight in shaking hands, as she peers inside the windows and examines the peeling walls. Amanda joins her there, tries to look through the glass. Inside it looks like any abandoned warehouse, empty except for stray hay and dirty and dust. It looks like the storage space for a farmer in the 70's, a little decrept and eerily old. Anger flares in her chest, they had wasted a whole day in this wild goose chase and now they were back at point zero. She grips the stone in her hands, feels the jagged ends scratching her skin, and pulls her arm back to throw it against the dusty windows.

 

The sound of breaking glass rings through the fields and Amanda winces. Farah shakes her head but comes over to have a better look inside the building. Amanda thinks it looks the same, except it kind of went from 180ps and buffering to 720HD, but Farah is frowning like she completed a puzzle only to find the last piece missing. She turns, says _warehouses don't have cellars_. And Amanda is confused because, _well, yeah, I guess? Why?_

 

Farah doesn't answer, instead she grabs her hand and drags her to the back of the building and points at the small barred cellar window near the ground. It's the size of a brick and iron bars are rusty, and Farah may be onto something because now that she thinks of it, Amanda hadn't seen any doors inside and why would they have a hidden cellar in a warehouse in the 70s?

 

"Dude, this is so creepy," Amanda crouches to try and look inside, but it's dark and the angle is weird, "what do you think it was?"

 

"I'm not sure," a pause, the sound of leaves being crushed, "an old speakeasy, maybe?"

 

"Whatever," Amanda gets up, faces Farah, "it looks abandoned, though."

 

"Yeah, it's just so weird."

 

There is a spark of excitement inside her as an idea takes form in her mind. They walk around, looking for more hidden windows. By the time they circle back to Todd and Vogel, they count two more.

 

Farah goes tell the boys, frown still in place, while Amanda finds her broken window. The spark has ignited into a flame, the idea takes shape and form; she takes off her jacket, wraps it around her fists and finishes breaking the glass. Todd and Farah are bent over a map, disappointment clear in their scowls, but Vogel gets one look at her, grins and comes help her.

 

When they finally get rid of all the shards, she grins, feels the adrenaline and excitement coursing through her, tells Vogel, _c'mon help me up._

 

She is halfway through the window when she hears Todd shrieking out _Amanda!_ and running panicked towards her, Farah shaking her head and following close behind. Vogel cackles, Amanda laughs, jumps in.

 

Sitting on the floor she straightens her jacket, bats the dust off her clothes. She can hear Todd going from calling out her name to lecturing Vogel, so she stiffles a giggle and gets up.

 

On the other side of the window Todd looks like he might be having an aneurysm and _Amanda, are you okay?_ , Farah looks resigned and worried and a little proud, and Vogel gives her a manic grin and a thumbs up. All in all, Amanda thinks it is going swimmingly.

 

"So! Who's up for some exploring?" She says and excitement bleeds into her voice, "no? Fine, gimme the flashlight."

 

Farah complies and tells her to be careful and look for the cellar or anything out of place.

 

Todd complains loudly and demands her to come back, but she reminds him she is thin and fast and everyone else would have a harder time passing through the small window. Besides, she had already crawled through.

 

The warehouse inside is dark and Amanda can't see two feets in front of her, there are old stacks of hay piled around and dust in the air, shadows upon shadows upon shadows along the walls. She turns back, gives them all a reassuring smile and ventures into the darkness.

 

She starts following the walls, flashlight in slightly shaking heads illuminating a thin slice of the ground in front of her. Amanda kind of wishes they would say something, anything to break the deafening silence.

 

She tries the door first, but it's locked, so she moves to follow along the east wall, right hand planted against the cement, but she thinks she might be halfway through when the light shows piles of dried up hay blocking her path. Amanda curses and considers tearing it all down, but the amount of dust and dirty and God knows what that would rise convinces her to circle around it.

 

She looks behind her shoulder one last time, the window she had crawled through now framing the worried faces of her friends and casting a weak light inside. Amanda takes a deep breath, grips her flashlight with both hands, walks around the damned hay.

 

It's even darker when she walks around it. Her hands shake, the beam from her flashlight flickers, she hears her own heavy breathing. The shadows seem to close in on her and Amanda feels the hair on the back of her neck stand as the unmistakable feeling of being watched washes over her. She looks around, heart beating wildly inside her ribcage, everything telling her to run out of there, but then there is noise at her left and Amanda quickly turns her flashlight. There is nothing but wall and hay, and she feels silly for scaring herself over nothing.

 

She is about to start walking again when there is another noise at her right, and as she turns around, she catches movement at the corner of her eyes and something darts past her. Amanda screams and jumps away, flashlight slipping and back hitting the piles of hay, bringing it all down with her to the floor. The noise is louder and things run around her, something dashing over her hand and red eyes staring at her. She shrieks and tries to scramble away, but the hay makes it hard to move and then something cold is grabbing her right foot.

 

A hand falls on her shoulder and Amanda screams.

 

She tries to shrug it off, but the grip only tightens, and Amanda is about to bite the wrist when Todd's face pop up in her line of vision.

 

Her brother hugs her and asks her if she is okay, and Amanda laughs shakily and a little hysterically. Her flashlight lays discarded on the ground, but it illuminates the wall and the black rats running around, and as Todd trains his at her foot, she finds that there wasn't anything gripping it, but rather she had got tangled in the hay and in an iron ring.

 

It takes her a minute to recover, but Amanda gets up and they make their way to the where she had stumbled. The flashlights show the ring connecting to a metal trapdoor, and it doesn't make sense because there is a digital lock with a blinking red light. The piles of hay had been hiding it all along.

 

Outside, she can finally breathe right again. Vogel bumps shoulders with her and Farah hugs her and Amanda thinks it just might be okay after all.

 

The warehouse is definitely a CIA facility, Farah is sure. A impressively and strangely well concealed one, so it must be pretty important. Project Blackwing must have passed through here first to get either gather supplies or wait new orders before moving on.

 

Vogel points out numerous car tracks on the ground, so it's not much of a stretch to believe they hadn't left too long ago.

 

That thought, along with the dawning realization they had just broken into a CIA facility which must have way too much alarms, is enough to get them to drive all night long.

 

They stop at a gas station, the sun is rising on the horizon and Amanda is laying on the hood of their car while Vogel hits the bathroom and Todd and Farah are once again bent over a map arguing the fastest and most likely way to Quantico and circling in red marker the known government buildings on the way.

 

Amanda watches the horizon and thinks of the summer before her disease. She had been a junior in high school, and she had no idea what she wanted to do with her life after school, but she had been sure of one thing: the summer before college she would make a road trip. She had dreamed of getting her brother, piling inside his battered car and hitting the road, crossing the country, going to New York, Vegas, California. Everywhere.

 

So, she lays in the hood of their car, watches the sun slowly rising, and thinks how different her road trip turned out to be.

 

Still, Vogel comes back and lays beside her, turning and fidgeting and talking, unable to stay still, and Todd and Farah bring them food from the store, map tucked under his arm and a word falling from her lips. _Idaho._

 

Amanda rests her head against the window, thinks of summers long gone by and cages and warehouses and the monster under the bed. But in the glove compartment there is a map with dozens of red circles that means _hope_ , so maybe this road trip isn't what she wanted it to be but it has a reason and a purpose, and she can work with that.

 

They are still a long way from leaving Washington and Idaho may be boring, but it's okay, it all becomes a blur in the end.

 

Out there, the sky stretches on forever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Heya!
> 
> If you liked it how about dropping a comment or a kudo? I also would like to ask what you guys thought about the lil' horror move scene at the warehouse 'cause I _might_ be thinking of writing a sort of haunted house thingie, so, feedback would be most appreciated.
> 
> You can also come talk to me and gimme your opinion on [my tumblr](http://wearealltalesintheend.tumblr.com/).
> 
> And hey? Thanks.


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